Third Time's a Charm
by LoveandLearn
Summary: Derek remembers the obstacles he and Addison went through to build a family when Meredith discovers she is pregnant and he may be the father. One-shot. Warning: Addek, not MerDer.


Derek's heart started pounding faster when the elevator came to a stop on his wife's floor. He stepped off and followed the signs toward her room then stopped at the door and stared. After a minute or so, he worked up the courage to knock. He knew he had to tell her, he knew she would find out eventually and it would be best if it came early and if it came from him. Despite all of that, he still hoped she wouldn't open the door. That way he would say he tried but she rejected him so it wasn't his fault if she got hurt later. But he wasn't that lucky, she opened the door with a surprised look on her face.

"Derek." she greeted quietly. "How did you know where I'm staying?"

"I dropped you off after work a few weeks ago, remember?" he asked. "I went to the front desk and told them I'm your husband and they gave me your room number."

"Oh." she said simply, holding the door open so he could walk in. "Is there something you needed?" she asked when he stepped inside.

Derek looked around the hotel room. It was not a suite, like she usually reserved when they went traveling together. It was just your average room and he'd never known her to strive to have anything average. "I uh, wanna talk to you." he answered.

Addison nodded and sat on the edge of the turned down bed. Derek awkward moved over to a chair placed by the large window. She looked at him curiously, waiting for him to say something. "Well..." she prompted.

"I'm just going to say it, okay? I'm not going to sugar coat it or anything like that." he started. "Meredith is pregnant and the baby might be mine."

_"Addie?" Derek knocked on the bathroom door. "Are you okay? You've been in there for 45 minutes."_

_"Go away, Derek." she called back to him._

_"I'm exhausted, I need to brush my teeth and go to bed...and I can't do that if my toothbrush is locked in there with you."_

_He heard her sigh from the other side of the door. "The door is unlocked, come in." she said._

_Derek walked into the bathroom to find her sitting on the counter by the sink with her back against the mirror and her knees pulled up to her chest. "Do you often lounge in the bathroom?" he asked teasingly._

_Addison picked up something from beside her and held it out to her husband._

_"Is that a pregnancy test?" he asked as he reached for it._

_She nodded her head to answer his question. "A positive pregnancy test." she specified. "I'm pregnant."_

_Derek's eyes widened in shock as she stared at the white stick. Finally he looked up at her and said. "Wow.."_

_"Wow?" Addison repeated, her brows coming together in disapproval for his reaction. "You're staring a pregnancy test, not a remarkable work of art."_

_"I'm sorry, I'm a little shocked but at the same time I've never been more amazed by anything in life. It's just... wow."_

_"Derek, I've got a person growing in me. You really need to stop saying that word."_

_"I'm sorry." he said again._

_"You're happy about this?"_

_"Of course I'm happy about this. My wife is pregnant with my child, how could I not be happy." he responded. "I know it wasn't planned and it will be hard to balance with work but we're Derek and Addison, we can do this." he promised.  
_

_They lost the baby five weeks later. _

"Oh..." she froze, staring at him speechlessly for what felt like an eternity. "Congratulations." she finally managed to say, offering him the best smile she could muster given the news she'd just heard. "That's seriously great, Derek. I'm happy for you, I know how much you wanted a child but um...why are you telling me this?"

"You're my wife. I haven't signed the divorce papers yet. I'm still thinking about what I want to do. And if we decide to try to work things out between us, you need to know and you need to decide whether or not you're okay with it."

"Okay."

"And it might not even be mine. She's at six weeks right now, that's puts conception at the week you came. I slept with her the night before but she slept with someone else two or three days later. It could be either of us." Derek explained.

"It's okay, Derek, you don't need to explain yourself to me. I slept with Mark and you came here and found someone to help put your past behind you. It would be hypocritical of me to scold you for adultery, don't you think?" she replied.

"I don't know. It's just..." he paused, and looked away from her before continuing. "I just thought it would be best if you found out from me instead of through the gossip mill, especially considering our past."

"Well, thank you for trying to protect me but you don't have to worry anymore, okay? You're not obligated to worry about how I feel anymore."

_"Addison." Derek said softly as he stepped into the supply closet in the pediatric unit. He saw Addison leaning against the wall sobbing hysterically while staring at a Starbucks cup on a shelf in front of her. "Honey, what's wrong?"_

_"They spelled my name wrong." she whimpered between sobs, pointing to the cup in front of her. "A-d-d-y-s-o-n. Y, Derek, Y! They used an Y instead of an I!"_

_"It's okay, honey, it's just a cup of coffee. It's not like they spelled your name wrong on your name tag or your diploma or something important like that. Hey! Remember when we were interns and my lab coat said Derek Shepard...How do you spell Shepherd with no H after the P? And that was on my labcoat, not a Starbucks cup."_

_"I hate these fertility treatments." she complained. "I'm an emotional wreck. Everything makes me hysterical. Yesterday I cried because one of the exam rooms in OB was out of gloves in my size. I had to wear the really big ones."_

_"Well, I know you don't like when gloves are too big."_

_"I don't like it but I've never had a hysterical tearfest over it." Addison exclaimed. "I made you sleep on the couch because you stayed in the shower too long. Um, I withheld sex when you forgot to buy Oreos when you went to the store..."_

_"Addie, it's the hormones. It's okay."_

_Addison looked up to meet her husband's eyes and wipes tears off her cheek with the back of her hand. "It's spelled with an I, not a Y."_

"I'm really sorry, Addison. I never meant for anything of this to happen, okay?" Derek apologized. "I don't even know if it's my kid. It might not be. In fact, I hope it's not."

"Don't say that. You have been wanting a baby for so long. And Meredith is younger than I was the first time I was pregnant, I'm sure that alone will make things much less complicated." Addison replied. "You deserve to experience it, Derek. You would be an amazing father."

"You were 29 the first time you got pregnant. Meredith is 30 now, she's not as young as she looks. You skipped two grades and graduated at 16, college at 19 and med school at 23. Meredith didn't skip any grades and did college in four years and took three years before med school. She's almost 30 now." Derek informed his wife to make her feel a little better about herself. "You were doing your first fellowship at 30. It was stressful and exhausting and that could have been the reason for the miscarriage, it wasn't because you were too old."

"Whatever, Derek. The point is that you should be enjoying this because you've been waiting for this for years. Enjoy it. Don't worry about how all of this effects me. I don't matter at all anymore, okay? Your baby is the only one that matters. After everything I put you through, I owe you that."

"Everything you put me through? You didn't put me through anything. We were in it together."

_"Derek." Addison called from the doorway separating the OR and the scrub room._

_Her husband turned away from his attending and their patient's open skull flap. "What are you doing here?" he asked curiously._

_"I uh, need to talk to you. It's urgent." she told him._

_Derek turned to his attending for permission to leave the room. After receiving a nod, he walked out into the scrub room where Addison was waiting for him. "What is it? Is everything okay?" he asked worriedly as he tossed his gloves, gown and mask into the bin by the sinks._

_"I'm pregnant, Derek." she said softly before the tears of utter joy started running down her face._

_A doofy looking grin quickly grew on his face. "You're pregnant." he repeated. "The IVF worked?"_

_Addison nodded her head in confirmation. "This is finally happening!" she exclaimed excitedly before jumping into his arms. They had been trying for almost a year to conceive naturally and just when she was starting to lose hope it finally happened._

_"Addie..." Derek said, pulling out of the embrace just enough to see her face. "I love you no matter what, okay?"_

_"I love you, too." She responded with a big, unmistakably ecstatic smile which quickly faded when she realized this wasn't the first time she shared a moment like this with her husband. "I'm scared." she admitted after a few seconds of silence between them. "What if this ends like the last one?"_

_"It won't. You're going to be fine, everything is going to be okay." Derek promised her and firmly kissed her lips._

* * *

"I told Addison about your pregnancy." Derek said to Meredith.

"How did she react? You're still alive so I don't think it went too bad." Meredith responded.

"It went find. She congratulated me and smiled and acted like everything was fine."

"And that's bad? What were you expecting her to do? Kick you in the nuts?"

"I was expecting her to be upset or something. It's a sensitive subject with us." Derek admitted. "And I know she is not okay with it but she's a Montgomery, they are impeccable at hiding their emotions. It took me so long to learn to read her."

"Why is a sensitive subject?" Meredith inquired. "I know you don't have any kids. So it's not like you're leaving the child she mothered for this kid."

"We really wanted kids." Derek confided in her.

"Why didn't you have them?"

"We tried for a while. It was hard. We had problems. She had a miscarriage once, the baby wasn't planned but we were really excited. It took some time to recover but we started trying again and it wasn't working. So she started fertility treatments. She had two failed courses of IVF before one took. And we were thrilled. We were cautiously optimistic. We didn't tell anyone, we wanted to wake until after the first trimester when miscarriage stats drop. After the twelfth week we told her family and my family and it was all perfect. Then at 19 weeks, we found out the baby was a boy. The appointment with her doctor when fine, everything was great. Two days later the baby was gone. We didn't realize it until Addison went into septic shock. It was hard to recover from that. I started working more, she grieved in her own way...by fucking my best friend. And now here we are."

_Derek's mother stood in the hallway outside of Addison's hospital room with Derek standing in front of her. She had just arrived after getting a call from Derek begging for her presence. She had no idea what was going on but knew from the sound of her son's voice that it was nothing good._

_"What happen?"_

_"She's recovering from sepsis. She hasn't woken up from anesthesia yet. She was in surgery to remove the septic tissue, in other words my dead, rotting child who literally poisoned her." Derek told his mother numbly._

_"She had another miscarriage?" Carolyn asked softly, glancing over her shoulder to look into the room through the window._

_"The baby was fine when we went in for her check-up a few days ago. We found out the sex. It was a boy. We don't know when it happened or why but this morning she woke up with nausea and she was worried about the baby, she said she felt cramping then darted off to the bathroom. I followed when I heard her vomiting and realized she was burning up. She said she was feeling faint and I called an ambulance. The EMT said her b/p was low. Septic shock which meant the baby had died a while ago and her body couldn't pass the tissue on its own, probably because she was pretty far along so the tissue was making her sick. It all happened in an hour, less actually."_

_"I'm sorry, Derek." his mother offered softly. "One is hard enough, but two... especially after everything she went through with the fertility treatments. The first two IVFs not taking, and the third finally did...I'm sorry. I know how ecstatic you both were, especially when she made it passed the first trimester..."_

_"I don't know how I'm going to tell her when she wakes up. She lost consciousness in the ambulance. She doesn't know."_

"Are you okay, Derek?" Meredith asked him, noticing his trance.

Derek snapped out of the memory and looked at Meredith. "What?" he asked.

"I asked if you were okay."

"I don't know." he answered honestly.

"You don't know?" she questioned. "How can you not know?"

"I can't do this. I can't end my marriage." Derek decided at that moment. "She's my wife. She put herself through hell to make my dream of fatherhood come true. We've gone through too much for me to walk away from her this easily. I can't sign the papers, I can't."

Meredith silently stared at him. "What about this baby?"

"If it's mine then I'll be there for my child. I'm not sure how Addison will feel about me having a child with someone other than her but I doubt she will try to keep me from the child. She can be a bitch, but not on that level."

_She woke up to find herself in a private room in a hospital bed with her husband asleep on a chair beside her bed. He was leaning on the bed, his head rested on her numb hand. "Derek." she whispered._

_He was awake instantly and the first thing she saw when she looked into his eyes was redness, the obvious aftermath of crying. _

_"What happen?" she asked. "Why are we here?"_

_"Addie..."_

_"I lost the baby, didn't I?" she asked, needing someone to confirm what she already knew._

_"You didn't lose the baby. It wasn't your fault. You're an neonatal fellow, you're the best neonatalogy fellow this hospital has ever seen; you know better than anyone else that miscarriages happen all the time for no real reason."_

_"Rarely this far along."_

_"The baby had been gone for a while, Addie. You went into septic shock. You could have died if we didn't get you here in time." he told her softly. "I realize we lost a child, I do, but I could have lost you too and I didn't so I'm a little relieved. I can't lose you too..."_

_"Our son is gone." she whispered, letting the news sink in. She was 19 weeks along and at first she tried not to get too attached in case she had a miscarriage. But after the first trimester she'd grown to love her unborn child more she ever thought possible. She and Derek were excited about the prospect of finally being parents. They had hopes and dreams for their family and now everything was gone._

Addison's first night at the trailer did not go as smoothly as they both had hoped. They planned to go home from work together and stop by somewhere to have dinner but Derek's last surgery doubled in duration after life threatening complications arose. The plans quickly changed, Addison went to the trailer alone and picked up take-out for them on her way. She barely ate, leaving most of the Chinese food on the table for Derek. She was asleep by the time he got home._******  
**_

He quietly ate the cold Chinese food and cleaned up after himself before getting into bed. He observed the vast distance between himself and his wife and wiggled over to her side of the bed to pull her back against his chest.

"Derek." She stirred, her eyes fluttered open.

"Go back to sleep, Add." he murmured softly.

Addison's hand moved up to rub the sleep from her eyes. "Is your patient okay?"

"No, I ended up losing her on the table." he answered. "But at least I get to be here with you. I'd be in the OR another 4 our 5 hours if she had made it."

"Why the sudden change of heart?" Addison posed the question she'd been asking herself for two weeks. "You didn't sign the papers, you ask me to move in with you, and now you're cuddling with me... This is drastic."

"I miss you."

"That's it?"

"Meredith asked me why we never had kids and I remembered everything. I lived it all over again, the miscarriages, hormone therapy, IVF. It reminded me of what we used to be. It reminded me that you loved me enough to put yourself through all of that for our dream..."

"And I failed at it every time." Addison reminded him.

"But you didn't give up."

"And now she's giving you the child I couldn't so I still don't understand the change of heart."

"It might not be my baby." he reminded her. "And even if it is, she's never going to be my wife. She's not the person I shared those dreams with. You're that person and you always will be."

"After the baby is born you might have a change of heart."

"I won't." Derek promised. "It's just me and you, okay? If it is my baby then I will love him or her but its mother will never come between us. You're always going to be my wife."

"Okay."

"I know it'll be hard knowing your husband has a child with another woman. I'm sorry. Do you think you'll be okay having the child around?"

Addison nodded. "I'd never try to keep you away from your child, Derek. We'll make it work."

_Mark sat across the dinner table from Addison. It was her anniversary and Derek had asked Mark to take his place for the night. A surgery came up that he could not pass up. Addison appeared to be understanding about it but the news devastated her deep down inside._

_"Is Derek planning on leaving me?" she asked Mark as soon as their waiter left the table with their order._

_"No! Why would you think that?"_

_"He's not here." she pointed out. "We had a fight...Well, it wasn't really a fight. We don't really fight anymore. It's like we don't even bother to exert that much energy. He told me he wanted to start trying for another baby and I told him that I'm not ready. I may never be ready. I lost two babies, Mark, I don't know how I'm supposed to act like that never happened and try again. He doesn't understand how hard it is..." _

_"He does understand, Addie, he lost them too."_

_Addison shook her head to disagree with him. "I had them inside of me. The first time it happened I felt the fetal tissue that should have developed into my child leave my body. The second time was worse, I let myself get attached. I actually felt her moving around in there and kicking. Everything was fine then one morning I wake up and she's been dead for so long that the rotting tissue was poisoning me. Derek can't know what it feels like because he never carried them."_

_"He's not planning on leaving you. Things have just been busy at work." Mark assured her before taking a long sip of his scotch. "And he still wants kids with you, he hasn't been distancing himself because of that."_

_"Maybe he does want to leave me, you never know. Maybe he'll end up with someone younger whose uterus isn't a death trap."_

_"Derek doesn't want _a_ baby, Addie, he wants a baby _with you_."Mark assured her. "He hasn't lose faith in you. I know it's hard right now but just give him time, okay? It'll get better once this rough patch passes."_

_"_If_ the rough patch passes." she corrected._

Addison put down the medical journal she was reading and propped herself up on her elbows in bed when she heard Derek walk in through the door in the trailer. "You're three hours late." she informed him coldly, fearing that her somewhat stable marriage to a caring husband would become cold and her husband would become indifferent again.

"Meredith had the baby. A boy."

"Oh...Should I be congratulating you?" Addison's voice suddenly became much softer. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with your son? You could have stayed with him, Derek. All you had to do was call."

Derek shook his head, tiredly stripping out of his clothes to get into bed beside her. "He's not mine."

"He's not?" Addison asked unsurely.

"Nope." he confirmed.

"How do you know? DNA results take days."

"He's black, Addison, I'm pretty sure he's not mine." Derek said as he got into bed.

"Oh..." she trailed off, cuddling closer to him with her head on his chest. "I'm really sorry, Derek. I know how excited you were about this."

"I was. I hated the thought of being a parent with someone other than you, but I wanted a kid."

"You'd be a great father no matter who the mother is." Addison replied surely. "It'll happen one day, Derek. You can't give up hope."

"Does that mean you're ready to start trying again?" he asked. It had been almost three years since the last miscarriage. She made it clear that she needed time to recover and he hoped his question would not make her feel rushed.

"I don't know. I haven't thought about in a while." Addison admitted. "I can't lose another child. I can't go through that again."

"There are no guarantees. The only way we know you won't lose the baby is if you don't get pregnant in the first place."

Addison signed heavily. "I don't want to do IVF again. I can't have hormones shot into me everyday, I'm bitchy enough as it is. I don't need fuel on the fire."

Derek chuckled softly. "No treatments." he agreed. "No strange doctor injecting my semen into you or loading you up with pre-fertilized eggs. Just me and you." Derek promised.

* * *

15 months later Derek watched his wife go through agonizing pain yet again but this time it wasn't fertility treatments or invasive procedures, it was to bring his child into the world. He hated seeing her in pain, he'd take her place in a heartbeat if he could. She'd already gone through more pain than anyone ever should, he'd seen her through two miscarriages and three rounds of hormone therapy for IVF, that was enough for one lifetime.

But as soon as the baby was in her arm, Addison's pain seemed like it never existed. He watched her stare down at their daugher, absolutely mesmerized by the little person staring back at her. He knew she couldn't even feel the pain anymore and he could say the same.

That night he sat at the edge of his wife's bed with the newborn in his arms. "She's perfect, right? She's the most perfect baby you've ever seen? And you've seen a lot of babies so..."

"I might be bias, but she's the most perfect baby I've ever seen." Addison agreed as she watched the baby in his arms."Have you seen her eyes? She has your eyes."

"Babies' color is like the first feature that changes as they get grow, you should know that better than anyone else, Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd." Derek reminded his wife teasingly.

"Well, we can hope hers doesn't change." Addison answered with a hopeful smile. "Can you believe that this is actually happening? She's ours, we made her without fertility treatments and she's actually here and she's perfect."

Derek put the sleeping baby down in the plastic bassinet beside Addison's bed. "Is there enough room in there for one more?" he asked, gesturing to her bed.

Addison moved over so he could crawl in and she felt his arm wrap around her and pulled her against his back, that was the only way they could both comfortably fit on the small hospital bed. She felt his lips against the back of her neck and giggled. "Derek, I just pushed 6 pounds and four ounces out of my vagina, I hope this is not foreplay."

He laughed at the comment and shook his head. "Just showing affection." he assured her.

"Do you realize that if you didn't get mixed up in a paternity triangle then this may have never happened? Who would have ever thought I'd be grateful that my husband may have knocked up another woman?"

"It would have happened eventually, it was just a matter of time before I realized that what we've gone through together is too much history to throw away so easily. I would have realized it sooner or later." he answered surely. "But maybe I should be glad I was involved in the paternity triangle, as you called it, because it gave me that clarity sooner rather than later."

"Derek?" Addison murmured after a few seconds of silence.

"What?"

"I was nice about it this time but if you are ever suspected of impregnating another woman again, I will personally cut your balls off."

* * *

Hope you liked it because it took me like 6 months and four drafts to come up with this (which is sad if you think about it). Please, please review :)


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